Debian Software

[Wonock]

I tried debian (apt-get is better than what it's cracked up to be :-)) buuuuut all the software on debian (after doing a ftp latest release install) is all older. Is there a reason for it ... I'm not saying it's just not right up to date, I mean things like Gnome were dated (to my knowledge of Gnome which is limmited). Just wondered why.

Wonock

[ndogg]

Are you using stable (right now potato) or unstable (right now woody)? Stable tends to be a little conservative and so the packages are often behind the latest package (it goes with the train of thought that the latest still has bugs). Unstable is bleeding edge and is up to date with most packages. If you want the latest, get unstable, but be warned that many of the packages have bugs that may break your system. With stable, most, if not all, bugs are weeded out, and so hence the name stable.

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Too much Sun can give you cancer. Windows break too easily.
Apples/Macintoshes can rot. BSD... sounds too much like LSD.
Penguins are the only animals sophisticated enough to wear a
tuxedo.


Linux, the only one with the Penguin.


http://ndogg.n3.net

[Derango]

yea, when debian says stable, they mean STABLE http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

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This space For Rent

[ColdPack]

Yeah, I run both both potato and woody on, of course, seperate partitions. Potato is just flat out nice because I have no worries. It's my main desktop system. My woody version I can't trust wholly. Things are more bleeding edge and even prettier sometimes but things are broken occasionally. That's more than I want for my everyday system.
So yes, stable is exactly that.


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Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake
when you make it again.
_- Franklin P. Jones

[Unruly]

Stable is quite conservative, because the package mannagers make SURE that the software they look over is, for the most part, stable ... albiet antiqated...

Unstable is just that, software that hasn't had extensive testing to prove it's stablity, or is just outright still in heavy development. This stuff is usually software that's in it's alpha/beta's and can have tantrums at any moment.

I usually use a mix of the two... I don't trust unstable completely, so I use stable packages to offset it. Like enlightenement, which is at 16.3, but the unstable packages are at something like 16.5 and even 17... I use 16.3, and the 16.5 epplet packages.

But your right, stable is quite antiquated, but that's the price you pay for stable software.

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Nathan
Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness.